


somewhere a clock is ticking

by fujiidom



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/pseuds/fujiidom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has their breaking point. Some just hold out a little longer than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	somewhere a clock is ticking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [solookup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/solookup/gifts).



Robin and Barney are the last two people left at the bar.

Barney spins a quarter, half-heartedly, as Carl starts stacking chairs on tables. They’re both putting off the inevitable walk outside. Although she’s only got a few flights of stairs whereas Barney’s got an entire cab ride, once he can catch one. She’d offer to let him crash at her place, but since Ted’s moved out, she worries if that sounds like she wants to revisit whatever it was that happened between them. Not that it hasn't crossed her mind. She just doesn't want to look like a tool when he politely rejects her for the bed of some on-call anonymous hook-up.

It’s just so fucking cold in New York. Which makes her backtrack because, what the hell? _You’re from Canada, Robin. Get it together._

Thoughts about how she’s lost her Canadianness. Canadianity. _Canadian roots_. There you go. Thoughts about how she’s lost touch with her roots always make her start thinking deep. Too deep than is a good idea with this much whiskey spilled on the table and this far into tomorrow.

With Barney having given up on scoring for the night since most of the available hot girls had gone home for the winter (“Five Ways Women Are Like Geese, Number Four! Next up: _molting_...”) and the lonely sound of an empty bar, she can’t help her mind from wandering.

Right now, she knows three things. 1. She loves when Barney loosens his tie. It’s like seeing the man behind the mask. He looks somewhere between 95 and 100% more human.

2\. She’s never wanted kids. Like her Canadian roots, her defenses against the idea of childbearing and child adopting have loosened like the size of her winter wear drawer has doubled. She moved here to get away from Jessica and kids and anything that kept her from a career. She’d learned first-hand that when you choose kids, you ruin your career. (You might also ruin the career of those around you, but that’s something different.

It is kind of why she was worried when Marshall and Lily had their first kid. It’s not just careers, really. In her mind, children just sucked the life out of everything fun and successful in a twenty-yard radius.)

She's just not sure where that leaves her. Currently with an all-star anchor slot and still feeling as incomplete and restless as ever.

3\. She’s drunk. She’s very drunk, actually. It came on slow because they started with wine, but yeah. She can’t feel her legs.

She’s in a haze when she says it, but given the uneven ratio between the depth of her thoughts to emptiness of her whiskey glass, you can’t blame a girl. “Barney, do you think I’d make a good mom?”

He looks over at her sharply and the quarter he’s been twirling skitters away out of his reach. “Hell yes, you would. You would be an amazing mother. You’d be the mom that every single one of your kids’ friends wants to nail. Plus, you’d probably let them have the parties at your house. So, double cool points." His gaze slides down for a split-second, "Triple cool points, if you want to get mathematical about it."

“Yeah, I think I’d be awesome, too.” Normally she’d fight him over arguments like that, but: _drunk_.

They stumble out of the bar with smiles on their faces. Both single, married to their careers, the last of a dying breed.

.

Robin’s not the kind of woman that brings up kids for no reason. She probably thinks about it all the time. She’d have to. Hell, he does.

He’s the best uncle _ever_. He’s got three godsons and a goddaughter. The more he sees of them (They’re all nearly in their double-digits, now. One of them starts college in the fall.) the more he feels like he’s holding out on the world. His children would be _amazing_. He’s dodged a lot of bullets, in the past, but that’s mostly because his standards for sleeping with someone are way below what he would consider suitable to be the mother of his phenomenal offspring. If he's being totally honest, there’s really only ever been one person who qualified.

And she asks him if he thinks she’d be a good mom. They were drunk, okay. That’s all his mind can come up with when he reflects back on just how pathetic his answer was. Now that he’s had a full day’s worth of not actually working to mull it over, he could write a thesis paper on the topic. ( _Truth, Justice, and the Canadian Way_ : Why Robin Scherbatsky Needs Be A Mother)

She’s everything that a great mother should be, but more. She’s caring, but tough. She’s beautiful, but messy. She’s perfect, but… They’ve gone there and nothing worked out. He still can’t understand what the actual reasoning ended up being for their disastrous break-up, but he’s sure it was enough that he’s barely wanted to think about it in the decade or so that’s passed since.

She’s his wing-man, again. No matter how blatantly she teases him with the prospect of being interested in other things. It’s just a coincidence that they’re both surrounded by babies all the time and they both happened to change their mind about the idea of kids and marriage and monogamy.

He flinches and immediately reprimands his subconscious. He _hadn’t_ been thinking about anything more than children, until then.

He’s ruined.

.

They’re at a birthday party for Ted’s daughter and both are surprisingly sober considering the amount of free booze available at the adults’ open bar inside.

The kids are stuffed in an inflatable castle that Barney (Best Uncle _Ever_!) showed up with, unannounced.

“I know it’s horrible to think about much less talk about, but do you realize that if their parents died, we’d have to raise them together?”

“Well, first of all: that’s gross, why are you talking about that? And second, please, like Ted and Marshall didn’t sign contracts leap frogging us for one another.” Robin makes a face and shakes her head.

“Well, what if they _all_ die. We’d have to raise _five_ kids together. Would you be able to handle that, Scherbatsky?”

“If you’re paying for the therapy they'd need after losing two parents, an aunt, and an uncle, then sure. I think I could sweat it. Hey, you said I’d be a good mom.”

“Oh, so you do remember that?”

“Yes, I do. I also know that I’d be a hell of a lot more than a Mrs. Robinson, okay.”

“No, you’d be Mrs. _Scherbatsky_.” He winks.

Robin leers back. “I thought we were raising them together. Wouldn’t that make me Mrs. Stinson?”

“Oh, _please_. If anything, I’d become _Mr._ Scherbatsky.”

Her eyes crinkle at the sides when she laughs. He's always loved that, he'll always love that. “Seriously?”

“You know me. I’d be willing to go down to the courthouse right now.”

“The freak hypothetical death of four of our best friends is not the way to start a marriage off, Barney.”

Barney shrugs. “Fair enough, I guess. You wanna try for a kid, first, then?”

She hesitates and they both notice. Suddenly, whatever she says feels like it’ll have to be important or awkward.

It leans towards awkward as she stutters out a timid, “I don’t know.” But just as Barney’s ready to change the subject to things less ego-bruising, she continues. “Maybe?”

It’s all he can do not to run off and join the kids in the blow-up castle for a few ecstatic bounces. “I think we owe it to the world, y’know?”

“God, I don’t know if the whole damned universe could handle it.” Robin grins.

Barney wiggles closer to where she’s sitting and whispers conspiratorily in her ear so as not to be heard by the rest of the party-goers. “I know whoever the kid is, he or she would definitely blow these ones out of the water.”

Robin’s eyes go wide. “ _Obviously_.”

Barney breaks, finally, and laughs. “We’re _horrible_.”

“Horrible, yes. _Accurate_ , extremely.” She giggles.

“I know we’re already laughing about this, but I was totally serious.”

“Oh, so was I. I don’t mess around with childbearing, okay. It’s one and done, but I think I’m finally warming to the idea. If you’re really game.”

“Save the date, Scherbatsky. We’re makin’ a baby.”

Robin looks around, casing the area for private places before leaning back over to Barney. “Wanna get a head start?”

“Why, Ms. Scherbatsky, _I do declare_!” Barney holds a hand to his chest and makes a mock scandalized face. He holds it for a few seconds before switching back to a deadly serious expression. “No, seriously, lead the way.”

.

This time, next year, they’re the ones scouting godparents.


End file.
